Foals of 1885

The most successful and valuable of thoroughbred broodmares was her glorious reputation.

Made her owner, a struggling physician in a country town, a wealthy capitalist in a few years. She cost $500 and returned to him $150,000. She paid for every inch of 850 acres of blue grass land owned by Dr. J. D. Neet, the now famous Versailles, Ky., breeder and turfman. Her produce run far over $100,000 on the turf and no less than four of her sons now rank among America’s most valuable sires. The most costly monument ever erected in memory of a horse is to mark her grave at Kindergarten Stud.

She was barren the first year she was bred, in 1888, and she had no foal in 1891, 1899, 1901, 1905, and 1906. Dr. Neet sent her this season to Elmendorf Stud to be bred to Waterboy. Later he received a message from C. H. Berryman, manager of that establishment, to the effect that the Brighton Handicap winner was impotent. Dr. Neet then ordered her to be bred to Africander, but that horse’s book proved full, and he sent her to Horse Haven Farm, and mated her to Ethelbert, and she was presumed to be in foal to Perry Belmont’s great racer when she died. Cinderella was 21 years old. Early last winter she was in rather poor condition, but she soon recovered her health and was in first-class fix seemingly up to within an hour of her death. She died of heart disease.

Of her famous produce Hastings is the premier sire of A. Belmont’s Nursery Stud, and in 1902 he headed the list of American winning sires; Plaudit is a star in the noted Hamburg Stud by J. E. Madden; Glenhelm is owned by H. S. Oxnard, the multimillionaire Treasurer of the Sugar Trust; Migraine is also at Hamburg Place; Handsome is at the head of Dr. Neet’s Kindergarten Stud; Glass Slipper and East India are broodmares at Kindergarten Stud, and Fairy Prince, now a 3-year-old, and Slippers, a 2-year-old of this season, are both in the racing stable of Harry Payne Whitney. Of her other produce Dan Reagan and Chelsea both were gelded, while Foreigner and Ferrier are dead, the latter dying the property of W. S. Hobart, the San Mateo (Cal.) breeder, who purchased him to place at the head of his stud.

In the thirteen foals she produced Cinderella never dropped but three fillies, and for six straight years she dropped in succession a half dozen stud colts. No matter what she was bred to she produced a sensational horse. Ferrier was by Fonso, Hastings by Spendthrift, Plaudit by Himyar, Handsome and Glenhelm by Hanover, and Migraine by imp. Topgallant.

At 17 years of age the late W. C. Whitney offered Dr. Neet $15,000 for the celebrated mare. Dr. Neet wrote the noted New York turfman that the principal living things he possessed were his wife, daughter and Cinderella, and he could not break up the family. Later on Whitney leased the breeding qualities of the mare for $10,000, and she was sent to his La Belle Stud, being returned to Dr. Neet in the summer of 1904, the breeding contract being canceled at the death of Whitney.

Cinderella was bred by Sir Thomas Throgmorton [sic], of England. In 1886 Alfred Withers, of London, sent to Egmont Lawrence in this country to sell ten broodmares and two yearling fillies. The last named two were Cinderella and Sarantella, the latter herself the dam of ten winners. Both were purchased shortly after their arrival in Lexington by Dr. Neet, he paying $500 for Cinderella and $400 for the dam of Handsel.

Cinderella was broken and handled by John Clay in the training stable of the late Maj. B. G. Thomas, and showed to have much speed in her work. Dr. Neet, however, had bought her for a brood mare and would not permit her to race. As a result she never faced the starter’s flag.

None of her daughters as yet are old enough in the stud to have representatives on the turf. Glass Slipper now has at Kindergarten Stud a suckling bay colt by Don De Oro and East India has at her side a bay colt by Ethelbert. Dr. Neet bred Glass Slipper this season to the latter horse, while he mated East India to imp. Star Shoot. He has ten foals by Cinderella’s son, Handsome, this year.

Cinderella was of double parentage, being sired by Blue Ruin, or Tomahawk, while her dam Hanna was a daughter of Brown Bread. She belongs to the No. 21 family of the Bruce Lowe figure system. What Pocahontas and Queen Mary were in England, Cinderella was in this country, and she has left an impression on racing in America as lasting as time itself.

The monument Dr. Neet will erect to perpetuate her memory will be mounted with a pedestal in bronze, a reproduction of the famous mare in life, taken from the last photograph made of her in her paddock at Kindergarten Farm.” (The Nashville American, 06/12/1906)

Photograph of Plaudit as published and Bit & Spur (Vol. 11, No. 1), February 1912.

Photo of Sir Dixon as published in Hoofprints of the Century: Excerpts from America’s oldest journal of horse racing and breeding, the Thoroughbred Record, and its predecessor publications, the Livestock Record and Kentucky Live Stock Record, as compiled and annotated by William Robertson (covering 1875-1919 and 1966-1974) and Dan Farley (1920-1965).

“Lexington, Ky., March 24. – Sir Dixon, Colonel E. F. Clay’s famous old thoroughbred stallion, is dead. Sir Dixon, while romping in his paddock at Runnymede stud, near Paris, yesterday afternoon, fell and broke a bone in his right hip. Colonel Clay, seeing that it would be impossible to save the son of Imported Billet and Jaconet, by Imp. Leamington, had him destroyed.

Sir Dixon was bread in the Runnymede stud and was foaled in the spring of 1885, making him 24 years old. As a yearling he was sold to W. S. Barnes, who disposed of him at the same age to Green B. Morris, for whom, as a two-year-old, he won the Camden and Select Stakes and Flatbush Handicap.

Morris took him to Washington the following spring, 1888, and won the Analostan Stakes, then moved on to Brooklyn and won the Carlton Stakes so easily from Raceland, the only other starter, that Dwyer Brothers bought him for a large price. For them he won that year the Withers, the Belmont, the Travers and the Lorillard Stakes. He did not go to the post in 1889. His only victory in 1890 was the defeat of Taragon in the St. James Hotel Stakes at Brooklyn, and his racing career ended with his breakdown in a high weight handicap sweepstakes at Coney Island in June of that year.

Sir Dixon’s winnings for Mr. Morris and the Dwyer Brothers aggregated nearly $50,000, and after his breakdown he was sold to Colonel Clay and Catesby Woodford, for something like $6,000, to become the premier stallion at Runnymede.

The first of Sir Dixon’s get made their appearance in racing in 1894, and the following is a schedule of their winnings: